17 April 2026
Rooted in Resistance: What the Psychedelics Beyond Trauma Summit Built in Puerto Rico
By: Jason Ortiz, Dr. Juliana Millán-Torres, and Sia Henry, J.D.
MAPS Bulletin: Volume XXXVI
Summit Background
To date, much of the Western psychedelic movement has focused on treating unresolved trauma, beginning with politically sympathetic groups like veterans and expanding to first responders, frontline healthcare workers, and survivors. By centering the suffering of well-represented populations, advocates have captured bipartisan support, mobilized researchers and clinicians, and advanced meaningful institutional reform. Yet this strategy has narrowed the field of vision. Grounded in medicalized frameworks and sympathetic demographics, the movement has too often sidelined those already underserved while inheriting the cultural and bureaucratic limits of the systems it seeks to transform.
With this paradox in mind, MAPS, the Last Prisoner Project, and the Colectivo Psicodélico de Puerto Rico convened a private summit in Puerto Rico in January 2026. Designed as a leadership and community-building gathering for organizers, movement experts, and catalysts, the convening, with over twenty organizations represented, prioritized trust-building, collective strategy, and exponential impact. Titled “Psychedelics Beyond Trauma: Policy, Positionality, and Personhood,” the summit invited participants to rethink narratives and tactics in light of a decade of drug policy reform, and to move beyond legal access alone. Instead, the aim was bolder: to defend every person’s right to explore consciousness and, in doing so, begin transforming the conditions that produce trauma in the first place.
Reflections from Some of the Organizers
Jason Ortiz (Last Prisoner Project):
Puerto Rico has been under colonial occupation longer than any other current nation, which makes it also the longest running direct resistance to colonialism as we persist in our efforts to achieve independence and sovereignty over our land, our people, and our minds. It is also one of the most majestic, healing, and vibrant lands in the world.
Living in this contrast as someone who has spent decades in drug policy reform, I know that psychedelic policy work has the potential to radically change society for the better. I also believe that psychedelic policy, and its ability to be a vehicle for foundational social change, can and should be a foundational pillar in our movement for Puerto Rican independence. I see the movement for psychedelic reform as a vehicle to reimagine what is possible through collective action and public policy.
Since the first day I moved back home, one question has echoed in my thoughts every day: How can we create a broadly accessible psychedelic ecosystem that empowers individual and collective liberation? There was only one way to adequately begin to answer that question, and it was to bring together the most brilliant minds in U.S. psychedelic policy to converge with the strongest and most passionate organizers and advocates in Puerto Rico. Building this table was a personal dream come true, as these types of alliances are what cultural revolutions are built on, and I think we can all agree that both the United States and Puerto Rico are both in desperate need of revolutionary strategy and solidarity.
This summit was different from a conference in that we are organizing horizontally as equals with expertise and passion for particular subjects, who can collectively solve any challenge that might arise. We focused on policy because, when we talk about policy, we’re really talking about turning our ideas, our dreams, our hopes into concrete, actionable reality. There were no panels or spectators; only small interdisciplinary groups focused on solving the most critical issues, such as protecting ceremonial and Indigenous use, community-based regulation, going beyond medicalization, and criminal justice reform and decriminalization.
As a staff member of the Last Prisoner Project and someone who has been arrested for drug possession as a teen, ensuring decriminalization and the emancipation of prisoners were vital pillars of our discussion was a necessity for me. The use of the criminal justice system to suppress consciousness and solidarity has always been a political act, as is the act of undoing it. Here in Puerto Rico, the penalty for possession of psychedelics remains a felony carrying a mandatory minimum of three years in a cage, and the penalty for sharing or distributing psychedelic mushrooms carries a 20 year mandatory minimum. While it is true that very few people are given these sentences, that can change at any moment if the current or future administrations decide to use our community as a political pawn. Before that happens, it would behoove all of us to permanently erase these absurd penalties from the law forever.
The movements for individual sovereignty over our minds, the end of the prison industrial complex, and Puerto Rican independence are all inextricably linked. This summit built the bridges necessary to build – not just imagine – a truly game-changing approach to psychedelic policy that incorporates all three. As we continue to build out the “Boricua First” Puerto Rican model of psychedelic regulation, I am eager to bring in even more of our best allies and advocates as we create something truly revolutionary.
Dr. Juliana Millán-Torres (Colectivo Psicodélico de Puerto Rico):
For me, the summit was significant, beginning with its intention. It recognized that the medical system, while important, does not represent the entirety of the psychedelic community. By expanding the conversation into the realm of public policy, the summit created space for greater inclusion — especially for people who engage with psychedelics outside strictly medical frameworks.
Policy and regulation must reflect the diverse ways we relate to psychedelics/entheogens: clinical, community-based, ceremonial, spiritual, and even personal contexts of growth. From this perspective, the summit honored accessibility, informed dialogue, ethical responsibility, and conscious stewardship. It acknowledged multiple sectors and models of engagement rather than centering a single dominant narrative.
That this took place in Puerto Rico carries profound meaning. Puerto Rico is a historically colonized territory, and as a mental health professional, I witness daily the identity struggles that many Puerto Ricans carry. Spaces that integrate community awareness, access to health and wellness, culture, public policy, and social justice create openings for us to re-examine who we are — individually and collectively.
Psychedelic spaces — whether medical, ceremonial, community-based, or otherwise — often invite exploration of identity, agency, and our positioning within the systems that regulate us. They reveal how interconnected everything is. Hosting this summit in Borikén, the ancestral land of the Taíno people, shaped by Indigenous, African, Spanish, and other lineages, represents an opportunity for greater self-determination and collective empowerment.
In many ways, the summit felt like a historical moment. The creativity, imagination, and diversity of backgrounds in the room were deeply inspiring. It felt as though we were preparing ourselves to become part of a generation willing to reimagine systems that currently do not foster greater interconnection.
For the participants representing the Colectivo Psicodélico de Puerto Rico, this gathering has already created a ripple effect. It strengthened our commitment to building local spaces grounded in responsible self-determination, community care, and political consciousness. What happened during those days was not an endpoint — it was a beginning.
Sia Henry (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies):
This summit featured a full day of workshops, and I spent the morning in deep conversation about radical changes to our criminal legal system (because, as Angela Davis reminds us, “radical” simply means “grasping things at the root”). The dialogue was so energizing that it spilled into our break, and in that overflow of urgency and imagination, I found myself returning to the “last girl” social change framework. The concept challenges us to measure progress, not by how far the most privileged have come, but by the lived reality of the girl who stands furthest from opportunity (e.g., the one navigating the heaviest burdens of poverty, discrimination, exclusion, and violence). This approach calls on us to build systems around her needs first, recognizing that justice can not be real until she is safe, educated, healthy, and heard. Rooted in Mahatma Gandhi’s teachings and shaped by intersectional activism, the framework holds a powerful truth: when we design changes for those most affected by overlapping inequities, we create progress that lifts everyone. What works for the most exploited and oppressed among us works for all of us.
For me, the “last girl” framework captures why it was not only important to hold this policy summit in Puerto Rico but also to co-host it with a Puerto Rican community-based organization and ensure strong Puerto Rican representation in the room. As a Black woman in this space, it has been painfully obvious which communities many policies are designed to serve and whose suffering is deemed worthy of healing.
Given Puerto Rico’s historic and ongoing colonial subjugation and socioeconomic dispossession at the hands of the United States (and the country’s treatment of Latinx communities more broadly), grounding psychedelic policy conversations in that reality felt essential. If we are serious about transformation and “healing for all,” we must begin with those most shaped by structural harm – not as an afterthought, but as architects.
The community we began cultivating in January is part of a much longer arc. I look forward to creating more opportunities for dialogue, strategy, and collective dreaming that intentionally and meaningfully invests in the leadership and wisdom of the “last girls” because when they thrive, we all do.
Next Steps
Nationally
The Psychedelics Beyond Trauma Summit convened 27 participants from across the country, representing more than 20 organizations. Designed around curated, intentionally facilitated small-group workshops, the gathering produced over 30 policy recommendations for the field. MAPS, the Last Prisoner Project, and the Colectivo Psicodélico de Puerto Rico are continuing to engage with attendees to refine and publish these recommendations, with the goal of advancing a more cohesive, national narrative and strategic roadmap for the field. Stay tuned for the release of these bold and forward-thinking policy recommendations in May, when we’ll share a collective vision poised to shape the future of psychedelic policy nationwide!
In Puerto Rico
This summit inspired the Colectivo Psicodélico de Puerto Rico to move forward with a stakeholder-driven process to develop the “Boricua First” Puerto Rican model of psychedelic regulation. To kick things off, they will be forming a “People’s task force” composed of nine stakeholders, three representatives each from three sectors: (1) decriminalization and harm reduction, (2) research and medical use, and (3) ceremonial and ancestral rights. This task force will then embark on a series of community input sessions, and those recommendations will be synthesized at a local Puerto Rico policy summit. Those policy recommendations will then be drafted into legislation that will become the center of Puerto Rico’s movement for psychedelic liberation.
The “Boricua First” Puerto Rico model will prioritize access and opportunity for Puerto Ricans and be inherently anti-colonial, anti-carceral, and focused on ensuring broad-based access for all. This model will go beyond refusing to center militarism and capitalism by actively replacing oppressive structures with systems of community empowerment. The Colectivo is excited to begin this journey, share its approach with the world, and watch how other communities use this model to empower their own efforts towards creating a psychedelic ecosystem that supports individual growth, community liberation, and a new way of envisioning how we structure society.
Jason Ortiz
Jason Ortiz is the Director of Strategic Initiatives for the Last Prisoner Project, focusing on policy and advocacy for incarcerated individuals affected by drug laws, and currently serves as the Chair of the Policy Committee of the Puerto Rican Psychedelic Collective. A cannabis justice advocate since he was arrested for smoking on the way to school at age 16, Jason co-founded the Minority Cannabis Business Association and helped draft Connecticut’s 2021 cannabis equity framework. He is the former Executive Director of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, where he trained students to combat the war on drugs, and has served as the Policy Director for CT for Accessible Psychedelic Medicine, and President of the Connecticut Puerto Rican Agenda where he mobilized support for the independence of Puerto Rico.
Dr. Juliana Millán-Torres
Dr. Juliana Millán-Torres, Psy.D., is a clinical psychologist and transpersonal / psychedelic therapist based in Borikén, Puerto Rico. She is the founder and director of Colectivo Psicodélico de Puerto Rico and Colectivo Psicodélico Inc., initiatives dedicated to community-based psychedelic education, advocacy, research, and harm reduction in the archipelago. Her clinical work centers on preparation and integration for psychedelic experiences, existential processes, and supporting people through spiritual emergence. Dr. Juliana is trained in Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) and in psilocybin facilitation through the Oregon Health Authority (OHA), grounding her therapeutic approach in both medical safety and relational depth. She is currently developing a pilot study on psilocybin-assisted therapy for demoralization in end-of-life contexts, rooted in scientific evidence and community-oriented ethics. Across her roles, Dr. Juliana is committed to building accessible, culturally rooted, and justice-oriented psychedelic ecosystems in Borikén, Puerto Rico, and beyond.
Sia Henry, J.D.
Sia Henry is deeply committed to liberation and racial justice and has spent over a decade in the criminal legal system reform and abolition spaces. She comes to MAPS with the goal of ensuring Black, indigenous, and other communities of color have meaningful access to transformative healing opportunities. Sia previously worked with the Restorative Justice Project at Impact Justice, supporting community-based organizations and criminal legal system partners around the country in establishing pre-charge restorative justice diversion programs that, without relying on prosecution or incarceration, bring those who have caused and been impacted by harm into healing and accountability processes. She also spent a number of years on conditions of confinement work, engaging in impact litigation and training to improve conditions for incarcerated people with physical and developmental disabilities and mental health issues, and those most at risk of sexualized violence.
Sia is also the founder and Executive Director of the Hood Exchange, which introduces formerly incarcerated Black communities to international travel throughout the African diaspora. Sia graduated from Harvard Law School and Duke University.
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